With a large chin, a prominent slightly arched nose and delicate lips, the "face" of England's King Richard III has been unveiled, a day after researchers confirmed his remains had finally been found after 500 years.

The three-dimensional plastic model is based on a CT scan of the skull of the king, who was killed in battle in 1485 after just two years on the throne but lived on as one of history's worst villains in the eponymous play by William Shakespeare.

The task of reconstructing the face - complete with shoulder-length black hair - was led by Caroline Wilkinson, professor of craniofacial identification at the University of Dundee in Scotland.

Her team created a scientific reconstruction using a CT scan of the remains and the bone structure to estimate the thickness of the various layers of muscle and skin.

About 70 per cent of the face's surface should have less than 2 millimetres of error, says Wilkinson.

No portraits of Richard were used for the main facial reconstruction, although the clothing, wig, and some features such as eyebrows, eye colour and skin colour were based on paintings of the dead king.

The final outcome however does bear a strong resemblance to portraits of Richard III - but without some of the less-flattering traits that appeared during the reign of Henry VII, his conqueror at the 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field, and the Tudor dynasty that followed.

'No clawed fingers'

Philippa Langley, of the Richard III Society, who led the four-year hunt to find the king's remains, said it was a face without the Tudor caricatures: "No slanty eyes, no mean mouths, no clawed fingers beneath it."

Wearing a black felt hat, with hair down to his shoulders, one of which was slightly higher than the other - in keeping with the discovery his skeleton had a dramatic spinal curvature - the reconstruction depicts Richard, 32, with delicate, almost feminine, features.

Another academic has been trying to establish how King Richard III may have sounded when he spoke.

Philip Shaw, of the University of Leicester, examined the king's handwriting, and given that the spelling in those days often reflected local dialect, concludes he may have spoken with a Birmingham accent.

The skeleton was found during an archaeological dig at a municipal car park in Leicester last August.

A team at the University of Leicester announced earlier this week that DNA tests, carbon dating and examination of bones proved beyond reasonable doubt that it belonged to Richard III, ending a 500-year-old mystery.

After his death at the Battle of Bosworth, near Leicester, Richard III's body was buried by Franciscan friars, known as Greyfriars, in an unmarked grave. When their monastery was destroyed in the 1530s, all traces of him disappeared.

Richard's remains will now be re-interred at Leicester Cathedral in a ceremony next year.